Pandora vs Spotify Listeners, 2015-2023 [CHART]

Pandora may be the most popular music streaming service in the US, but it won’t retain the No. 1 spot for much longer. According to eMarketer’s latest forecast on digital music listeners, Spotify will surpass Pandora in terms of users by 2021—one year sooner than eMarketer predicted last year.

This year, Pandora will have 72.4 million US listeners, down 0.5% over 2018. Pandora has been the dominant music streaming platform in the US since its launch in 2000. Until recently, competitors were nowhere near it.

Back in 2012, Pandora had 67.0 million users, compared with Spotify’s 5.0 million. But Pandora has been losing users in recent years. In fact, by 2023, it will have lost more than 9% of its users since its peak in 2014. As a result of declining usage, we have downgraded our forecast for Pandora.

In 2019, Spotify will have 65.3 million users, up nearly 14% year over year. By 2021, it will have 73.7 million, surpassing Pandora’s 72.2 million. Smart speakers and mobile devices have been big growth drivers for Spotify. Read the rest at eMarketer.